Get A Free ONE WAY TICKET Mix Tape or CD!

Posted by ChrisArrant on Wednesday, September 20 2006 at 10:55 am

Wondering what the mix tape was that Sully mentioned in the closing moments of Chapter 1? Wonder no longer. 10 songs selected by myself and Daniel Warner, for your enjoyment. Some can make their own mix tape based on this, or if you’re one of the first 5 people to reply to this message then we’ll make one and send it out to you. Include your email address and preference of mixtape or MixCD!

This week is the first “Skip Week” in the webrelease of 1 Way Ticket; consider it a breather between chapters as we expand the horizons of the webcomic with some extras. Next week Chapter 2 begins, but this week we’ve got a couple things to serve up to you: a 1-on-1 interview with me and Dan and production sketches by Dan himself.

Before we dig in, let me give a nod of the head to Tony Simmons at the Panama City (Fl.) based newspaper The News Herald, for mentioning us in his blog. Check It Out!

Now on to the Q&A!

ARRANT: Why the hell did you agree to work on 1 Way Ticket with me?

WARNER: It’s all about RUM - Rising Unstoppable Momentum! I had been thinking about collaboration, and digitally delivered comics for about a year when you approached me and I saw this as a good opportunity to jump in and start pulling levers and pressing buttons.

Also, there is a stray cat in my neighborhood that walks on it’s hind legs and stares at people.

One day, early in the morning, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and came downstairs to find him standing in the middle of my kitchen. He was completely motionless, STARING a me with his still, yellow eyes. He had written chemsetcomics.com on the wall with a headless mouse. I took that as a sign.

When you and Vito were pulling this idea out of your combined heads, was there ever any talk of a revenue model? If so, what happened to it?

ARRANT: I was brought into the loop fairly early on, but I don’t remember us even considering a payment system. Our main goal was to get these comics in front of as many people as possible, and putting a door charge on it would limit the number of people able to read it, and work against our main goals.

Looking at other popular webcomics, the main revenue source seems not to be micro-payments (sorry Scott McCloud), but by selling advertising and merchandising. We’re far from that point, but it’s something to consider.

WARNER: There is sort of a COMICS-MANGA-WEBCOMICS nexus happening with 1 Way Ticket. It’s not intentional on my part, was this part of your design?

ARRANT: Far from it. I really haven’t had time to separate myself from the work enough to get a good perspective on it, but I would say that I’ve been reading equal amounts of comics, manga and webcomics lately. The story itself was formulated in 2005, but I didn’t start nailing down the ideas and pulling them taut until the summer of ‘06.

My primary influence on this was my time spent in dead-end bands and my life-long obsession with music. When I came to realize that the subject of music is one that’s not that prominent in comics, it provided the impetus to start throwing ideas at a wall and seeing what stuck.

WARNER: Who is Nancy based on? Name names. Was her name inspired by Sid Vicious’ Nancy?

ARRANT: A tiny, tiny bit. The Sid & Nancy connection didn’t come about until after I had settled on a name, but it made it impossible for me to go with anything else. For me, Nancy’s one of those names that is so un-modern it’s rustic, but it’s names like that that the right person can reclaim from history and recalibrate to their own times.

Your work on 1 Way Ticket has been quite different that your style on Cocopiazo. Can you tell us what queues led you to doing what you’re doing with 1WT?

WARNER: I’m just trying not to over think it. The images are coming from an authentic place, and I just want to blurt it all out onto the page. WIth Cocopiazo I tried to avoid looking like my biggest influences (Paul Pope, Goseki Kojima, Todd McFarlane, Berni Wrightson, Dave Mazzuchelli, Bruce Timm, and Mike Allred in case you couldn’t tell :). That was mostly in reaction to a bunch of reviews that seemed to go out of there way to compare me to other artists. These days I don’t give a shit about any of that. This is the kind of stuff that turns me on, so I’m doing it. The hard lesson about style that I’m just starting to learn is that it comes more from the limitations you put on yourself than about what you are fully capable of.

ARRANT: How about your own music experience; can you tell us about that?

WARNER: I was in RAWK bands all through high school and college, I can play the guitar and sing. I’m definitely drawing on those experiences when defining the atmosphere of 1WT. For a few years after college I roomed with a kid who had two Techniques decks, a mixer and some loud ass speakers. I amassed a huge collection of records and through some cringe-worthy experiences learned how to rock a party. I left that stuff behind for the most part when drawing took over my life. Listening to music is, of course, still a HUGE part of what makes me tick. And now I have Garage Band on my laptop which is like being a fat guy on free donut day.

NEXT WEEK: 1 Way Ticket Chapter 2 beginnings with the threat (and promise) of band groupies, and two friends go head-to-head.

Category: 1 Way Ticket

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